


si vis pacem, para bellum

by chrofeather



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Blood and Torture, Canon Divergence - s02e21 The Maquis, Cardassians with tails because I'm into that I guess, Electrocution, Forced Mind Meld, Forced Nudity, Gen, Interrogation, Mind Meld, Torture, descaling I guess?, flaying, lots of generally unpleasant things, stress positions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrofeather/pseuds/chrofeather
Summary: A canon-divergent snippet in which the Maquis rebels are not so reluctant to get their hands dirty when it comes to interrogation, and Dukat suffers for it.Fortunately, the Federation hasn't written him off just yet, even if the Central Command has.[Takes place during "The Maquis, Part II"]
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Dukat
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	si vis pacem, para bellum

**Author's Note:**

> This is another WIP I've had in my folder for a few months, and I finally got inspired to finish it recently. It's mostly an excuse for some good old-fashioned Cardassian whump, and I picked Dukat because the perfect setup was already there with the kidnapping episode and the Maquis. (I have another WIP featuring Garak in a somewhat similar situation, hopefully to be finished in the near future.) I have indulged my personal fantasies and made Cardassians slightly more reptilian in this, so there are tails and claws. 
> 
> Nobody dies, but there's plenty of fairly graphic torture. Good ending though, because our dear Julian is a good doctor who can't stand to see anyone suffer. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!

“My mind to your mind. Your thoughts to my thoughts,” intoned the Vulcan woman, her eyes closed, fingertips pressed against his facial ridges. 

Dukat kept his eyes closed, focusing on an image of a map of Cardassia City. He could see the boundaries of each district, the paths of each crisscrossing street, the details sharp and clear in his photographic memory. He felt her telepathic pressure, but it was easily repelled. This was too easy. For a Vulcan, she wasn’t very good at this. 

He heard her pause and take a shaky breath, the mental pressure withdrawing. Then, she tried again. “My mind to your mind. Your thoughts to my thoughts…” 

The pressure returned, but Dukat didn’t let it disturb his focus. He pictured the Torr sector, the miles of aerotrain tunnels and skimmer highways, the circulatory system of the city. 

“What’s going on down there?” came an impatient voice.

Dukat felt her concentration break, and he opened his eyes. “It’s not working, that’s what,” he said with more than a hint of smugness.

The human male who had spoken previously was standing on a high platform, silhouetted by an overhead light in the gloom of the caves where the rebels had made their little base. He scowled. “I thought you said you could get in his head, Sakonna.”

Sakonna let her hands drop to her sides, her shoulders stiff as she looked up at the human. “This is not normally done on Vulcan,” she said sharply. “...it appears he has the ability to resist a mind-meld.”

“Just great,” grumbled Niles, another of the rebels. “ _Now_ what do we do?”

“I will rest and try again,” Sakonna said, her logical calm returning. 

“We can’t afford to wait any longer,” insisted one of the rebels holding Dukat at gunpoint. He sounded agitated. “We need that information, and we need it _soon,_ Sakonna.”

“I know,” Sakonna responded with the unreadable expression of a Vulcan. “Nonetheless—”

“Nonetheless, it’s clear to me that you don’t have a clue as to what you’re doing,” Dukat interrupted, unable to help but feel terribly satisfied to have frustrated their efforts so soon. He smirked. “Just as I expected. You’re going to fail, you know.”

“And what do you know about it, Cardie?” said Niles sharply, glaring.

“I know that you lack the conviction to get what it is you want,” Dukat said simply. He looked around the cave, distinctly unimpressed. It was amateur work at best, really. He’d been trained to resist professional torture, and these… _Maquis,_ their attempts at intimidation were laughable. He crossed one leg over the other, intent on seeming relaxed despite the fact that his hands were cuffed behind his back on the rock where he was sitting, held at the point of two phaser rifles. “So, you may as well give up this charade now.”

The man on the platform scowled. He swiftly slid down the ladder to the rock below. “Conviction? I’ll show _you_ —”

“No.” Sakonna held up a hand and stopped the man in his tracks. It was hard to tell if the rebels had a distinct leader, but this woman certainly had the potential. Her cold gaze had not left Dukat for a moment. “He’s right. We do not possess the Cardassian gift for inflicting pain.”

“Perhaps not.” A new voice spoke now, so soft it wouldn’t have been audible without the echo of the caves. Dukat had to strain to hear it, but he could see better in the low light than any of them, and the man’s appearance was clear even in the shadows. An intricate earring glimmered on his right ear. 

He was a Bajoran, Dukat realized with some surprise. What was a Bajoran doing out here with these mostly human rebels?

The Bajoran man took a few steps forward, out from under a rocky overhang that apparently led to somewhere else. He was of average height, with a solemn face and the characteristic wrinkled nose bridge. In the light, his cheeks were sunken, his skin pale. He had huge, hollow eyes with pale irises, a striking contrast to the mostly dark-eyed Bajoran populace. He walked slowly, with his hands at his sides, but there was something about the way he held himself--the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head--that made Dukat wary. 

“Krell,” said Niles, sounding surprised. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Krell’s thin lips turned up in what was probably supposed to be a smile. It was an expression that could have been carved from marble. “I thought you might need my help,” he said simply. 

Dukat couldn’t help but laugh. A Bajoran would be about as useful here as a blind hara cat on a Tarkalean condor hunt. The Bajorans were a docile, gentle people. Like sheep. They had little fight in them that was not borne of fear. It wasn’t in their nature to be cruel, or vindictive. The notion that a Bajoran would be even remotely helpful in a situation like this one was laughable. 

Krell turned his wide pale eyes on Dukat, still smiling that rictus smile. “What, may I ask, is so funny, Gul Dukat?”

Dukat raised his eye-ridges, and he gave an exaggerated glance at their surroundings with a scoff. “Well, all of this, really. All of you, playing at being Federation renegades. I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve by doing this, but it won’t work. That much is obvious.”

“And yet we managed to spirit you away from Deep Space Nine without so much as a trace,” Krell said airily.

“Five against one unarmed man is hardly impressive,” Dukat said dryly. “As I recall, you shot me in the back.”

“Our situation demanded that we could not take chances, unfortunately,” Krell said, unbothered. Somewhat disturbingly, he hadn’t blinked once, his intense stare still focused on Dukat. He smiled then, briefly revealing crooked teeth. “I suppose I’ve been rather rude. I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Krell Idaan.”

“I don’t care who you are. You’re all going to be dead very soon,” Dukat said with the satisfaction of knowing it was true. “Unless, of course, you’d like to end this far more simply and let me go.” Really, these fools were going to be dead anyway, once Central Command located him and sent a retrieval party. It was only a matter of time.

“Even Sakonna can’t get to him,” Niles said with a grimace, looking at Krell. “He’s somehow able to resist her mind-meld. You think you can crack him?”

Dukat openly laughed at the prospect, derisive, and one of the guards struck him in the back of the head with the rifle butt in irritation. 

Krell’s smile seemed to extend to his huge pale eyes now, making them seem even wider. “I have been waiting for this day for a long time,” he said with such calm that it was unsettling. His voice had a casual sort of melancholy about it, but there was an unwavering steel behind it. 

Dukat was starting to think something was wrong here. There was something off about this Bajoran, something he couldn’t place, but it was starting to bother him nonetheless. “Who are you?” he asked with narrowed eyes. 

Krell stepped closer, slowly circling Dukat, who felt something prickle under his scales when the man walked behind him. 

“I’ve already told you,” said Krell, utterly unruffled. “I suppose I’m just another Bajoran to you. But you’ll come to think of me as… someone memorable, perhaps.”

Krell stepped in front of him. Dukat didn’t like having to look up at the Bajoran, but he refused to break eye contact, staring defiantly into those pale eyes. “You expect me to be afraid of you?” He grinned. “How quaint. But a sheep is still a sheep _._ ”

Krell’s expression didn’t change one bit as he brought his long pale hand up to caress the long sloping ridge of Dukat’s neck. Then, at the sensitive juncture between neck and jaw, where the ridge was softest and least protected, he dug his fingers in with cruel precision, pinching and then yanking hard.

Dukat let out a strangled scream before he could stop himself, barely aware of what was happening as the pain of having his sensitive cartilage so brutally grabbed ripped through him like a lightning storm. He twisted and thrashed in the Bajoran’s hold on pure instinct, but that only made it worse, and he forced himself to be still, stiff and shuddering as his wrists strained against the cuffs. 

No Cardassian would have touched another’s neck ridge like that. No ordinary Bajoran would have _dared._ He hadn’t even anticipated the possibility of having such sensitivities exploited.

Krell hadn’t let go, and Dukat was forced to lean into the hold for even the smallest relief of that pain, his expression twisted with agony. Slowly, the pain dulled, but Krell hadn’t let go, using his hold to force Dukat to tilt his head back and look up.

“Look at me,” said Krell’s voice, maddeningly calm.

Dukat met the Bajoran’s gaze, baring his teeth in a defiant snarl, showing his fearsome set of double canines. 

“Very good.” Krell smiled again, his eyes luminous, and he let go. 

Dukat’s neck ridge still throbbed with agony, and he panted as he tried to catch his breath, glaring at Krell. His neck would probably bruise awfully. 

“Now you see, Gul Dukat, that we are capable of seeing eye to eye,” said Krell, the barest hint of amusement coloring his tone. “I can be very convincing.”

“A Bajoran torturer?” Dukat said with a derisive snort. “I never thought I’d see the day. And you Bajorans claim such moral superiority.”

“It’s funny you should mention that,” Krell said as he rolled up his sleeves, revealing arms covered in ropes of white and pink scar tissue, looking pale and almost lifeless in the gloom. “I was on Terok Nor for three years during the Occupation, you know. Accused of this crime and that.” 

Dukat felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the cave. He recognized scars like that. Many Bajorans who had undergone the rigors of questioning at the hands of Cardassian interrogators bore them, but he had never seen so many on one individual. 

Krell’s huge pale eyes glittered, and for once he looked alive. “I learned from the best.”

—

It wasn’t terribly pleasant, but Dukat had expected worse, honestly. The first thing they did was strip him naked and toss him into a chilly, damp cave barricaded by a force field. Without much else to do, he sat with his back straight and legs crossed and meditated for a while to pass the time, but the chill was relentless. It was well-known that Cardassians didn’t do well in the cold. 

Eventually, out of pure necessity to conserve what little warmth his body produced on its own, he ended up with his knees pulled up to his chest, tail wrapped around his legs. He had to keep flexing his toes to keep them from going numb. Still, he’d suffered far worse than a little cold and damp.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed before Krell returned and asked him if he wanted to talk. Hours, perhaps, but how many was anyone’s guess without the light of day.

Dukat only laughed and said, “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Krell’s huge eyes glimmered in the low light. “With pleasure.”

—

Dukat had to admit that Krell had learned his lessons well. 

A pair of humans bound Dukat's hands and kept him restrained underneath one of the tall platforms, suspended so that his toe-claws could just barely scrape the ground, putting a significant strain on his back and shoulders. Krell sat back and watched while the humans took turns beating him bloody. Dukat didn’t bother to waste energy resisting. He just taunted them, laughed and spat blood in their faces when they got too close. It only made them hit harder, but it was worth it for the looks of frustration on their faces. 

Eventually, one of the humans decided to get creative, tired of splitting his knuckles against tough Cardassian scales. His hand dipped down toward Dukat’s genital slit, and with an instinctive surge of disgust, Dukat kicked him in the chest hard enough to crack a rib—not to mention the lacerations from his toe claws. 

Krell actually smiled at that, despite the irate wheezing and swearing of the human man on the ground. 

Later, he restrained Dukat on his back and used pliers to pull out all five claws on his left foot, one by one, slowly. It took three men and a creative leather harness to hold him down. He didn’t scream, only bared his teeth and swore at them in Kardasi.

“Not going to finish the job?” he challenged, looking up at Krell despite the fact that he was shivering with both pain and cold. He flexed the claws of his right foot, taunting. 

“There will be time for that later,” was Krell’s response. 

They had to drag Dukat back to the chilly little cave where he was kept behind a forcefield. Cardassians relied on tactile feedback from their claws touching the ground to help them balance on their digitigrade legs, and as such even their military-style boots were effectively open-toed. Without that feedback, it was difficult if not impossible to walk more than a few steps without falling. 

Dukat curled up on his side, aching all over, and wondered what the hell was taking Central Command so long to find him. Surely they had sent out search parties by now, and Cardassians were nothing if not efficient when carrying out their orders. The Maquis couldn’t be _that_ well-hidden. They were insects to be swatted by the Union if they got too annoying. 

Somehow, that thought was becoming less and less comforting.

Krell didn’t leave him alone for long. He began by asking again, ever so politely, if Dukat was ready to talk.

Dukat responded with the rudest Bajoran swear words he could think of. 

Krell was nothing if not creative. He talked at length about his own experiences with torture, although Dukat wasn’t really listening to most of it. He was too busy shivering in the shallow pool of cold water where he lay restrained, tense as a bowstring, while Krell dipped the end of a live wire in and out of the water at his leisure. He watched with apparent apathy as Dukat thrashed and seized in the water while the electricity coursed through him, vicious and unrelenting.

Dukat coughed and choked when the electricity finally stopped, his chest heaving as he drew in ragged breaths, fighting the painful tension in his muscles. His body trembled all over with minute twitches from the electric shocks. At least it helped to stave off the freezing cold. 

Staring up at the craggy ceiling of the cave, Dukat noted distantly that his throat was sore, like he’d been screaming, except he hadn’t made a sound since the shocks had started. Or had he? He couldn’t remember. At least his toes were totally numb now, allowing him a merciful reprieve from the pain of his torn-out claws. 

Sakonna was observing, standing in the entranceway to another connecting cavern with a dispassionate look on her face. Apparently it was of some concern that Krell would kill him by accident. Dukat wanted to laugh, though he couldn’t do much more than wheeze at the moment. Krell was too good for that, like any interrogator worthy of his title. 

“Are you certain your skills are adequate for this particular manner of questioning?” asked Sakonna, her tone measured and even.

“Would I be here if I was not?” Krell asked without so much as looking at her. His expression was calm, unbothered. “Rest assured that I will not irreparably damage your prize, Sakonna.”

Her sharp diagonal eyebrows pulled together, just a few millimeters, but she said nothing more.

From his angle low on the floor, Dukat watched with vague disgust as she disappeared around the corner. For all their claims of being without emotion, Vulcans had no stomach for such things. An unfortunate weakness, truly. 

“She needn’t worry,” Krell intoned after Sakonna left, his voice echoing off the cave walls as though he were everywhere at once and not perched comfortably on higher ground near the cave’s entrance. “I know you Cardassians are resilient.” 

He dipped the sparking wire back into the water, and Dukat didn’t remember if he screamed or not.

—

Things were hazy for a while, after that. Dukat remembered cold and pain and the heavy tightness of his chest, but the details all blurred together. While he was conscious, his long blue tongue lapped sulfur-tasting water from depressions in the rock where he lay, desperate to sate the burning in his throat. He was so cold he couldn’t find it in himself to move, or perhaps that was the persistent all-over ache in his muscles from the repeated shocks. 

At least the lights were low in the cave. 

In the headquarters of the Obsidian Order, their prisoners were kept in frigid, brightly lit rooms designed to be hard on the Cardassian body. Dukat remembered it well. He had been prepared for it, as well as he could be, but those who worked for the Order were masters of their craft. 

It was good that his father had started training him so young, even though he had resented it back then. The young Dukat hadn’t quite understood why his father would sometimes lock him in the frigid cellar beneath their stately house in the Coranum sector and tell him to recite Preloc. At six years old, young Skrain Dukat had simply cried the first few times, much to the displeasure of his father. Justice Procal Dukat had been a man of high expectations and little patience, and he was no less stern with the youngest of his eight children, each of whom was taught to stand up to intimidation, isolation, and pain, and to trust no one. In short, how to survive in Cardassian society.

At first the elder Dukat had not paid much attention to his youngest son, who was the last of his brood, the youngest by a solid fifteen years. It didn’t take long for the younger Dukat to realize his father was impatient for him to grow up and be something, so that he could call his fatherly duties done. When young Skrain had elected to join the military rather than go into politics, Procal had at first been furious, but he grew to appreciate his youngest son’s skill as a military tactician. It was a prescient skill, as it turned out. 

The final test for all military officers in the Cardassian Union was a well-kept not-quite-secret. In order to ensure the loyalty of every officer under duress, the Obsidian Order was called upon to test their mettle in a mock-interrogation. Except it was very real, and all but the accusations of treason were as realistic as could be. 

How long one lasted in this test was a source of competition among officers of the higher ranks, and they would often speculate about how long some of the standout recruits would last. Eight to twelve hours was considered average—though for the Obsidian Order, that was barely enough time to warm up. More than eighteen was very admirable indeed, and few lasted more than twenty-four. 

Skrain Dukat had lasted thirty-three hours under the ministrations of the Order. His father had never been more proud. (Ironic, wasn’t it, that Procal himself didn’t last more than ten when they took him in for the real thing.)

It was a rite of passage from which he still bore the scars. The operative who performed the interrogation had to resort to flaying three scales on each side from Dukat's neck and shoulder ridges before he broke. This was a fact he relayed proudly to his fellows and to his father, though he left out the detail that he cried like a child when they did it. 

They always left the neck for last, in the Order. It was one of, if not the most sensitive parts of a Cardassian’s body, and after the exhausting ordeal of the rest of the interrogation, it was nearly always what broke them. 

Dukat did not know where Krell had picked up this information. Perhaps the Bajoran was a natural talent, though it seemed hard to believe. 

How much time had passed was an utter mystery to Dukat. The light never changed in this place, and it wouldn’t matter even if it did. Time could have run backwards and he wouldn’t have known. 

For this latest bout, he had been made to lie on his stomach with his arms stretched out overhead, hands still bound, but the cuffs were only a formality at this point. A bright lamp had been brought in so Krell could be meticulous in his work, and Dukat kept his eyes closed against its searing light. 

Krell had been flaying scales from his back and hips and legs for some time, trying to determine, as he said, “where was most enlightening.” Bloody scales littered the floor around them, and the raw pink flesh exposed by the gaps in his Cardassian armor bled sluggishly. He tensed up with dread when he felt the scalpel slide underneath another scale, but his exhausted body was trembling so hard he couldn’t even hold still to spare himself that pain. 

Dukat had all but given up on a rescue by the Central Command at this point. If they wanted to find him, they would have done it by now. He had started mumbling through recitations of Preloc at some point, and Krell had called in someone who spoke passable Kardasi to interpret. They were, of course, displeased when the impromptu interpreter relayed that he was babbling useless nonsense. 

It was terribly insulting, Dukat thought, that they considered Preloc “useless nonsense.” 

From behind him, Krell sighed. He let the scalpel blade slide harmlessly out from under a scale, then set the bloodied instrument aside. “You’re making this far harder on yourself than it needs to be,” he said, as calm and levelheaded as ever, like this was some minor inconvenience. 

He stood up, deliberately stepping on Dukat’s tail in the process. The pain that shot up the Cardassian’s spine was enough to make him gasp, but he couldn’t summon the will to move, not even to curl his tail in closer to his body. It hurt; _everything_ hurt, and he was so damned cold… A half-delirious laugh bubbled up from his throat. The Bajoran had made good on his word. It was almost impressive.

But Krell was endlessly persistent, ever calm. “I’ll ask you again. Where is the Central Command shipping weapons to? Who is carrying them?” It was the same questions, over and over. The guards at the entrance had changed shifts twice. They had all heard it. 

“I don’t know.” The words sounded raw and exhausted even to his own ears, but Dukat had no more strength to keep up his facade of defiance. His answer was always the same. His eyes stayed closed, his cheek pressed against the cold stone beneath him. They of course did not believe him when he denied the veracity of the events in question, the dogmatic fools. There were no weapons being shipped to Cardassian colonies in the DMZ, and even if there were, they certainly wouldn’t be supplied by the Central Command. This whole thing was an exercise in futility. 

What a stupid thing to die over, Dukat thought. He had half a mind to be bitter over it, but then he remembered that at the very least, this would make him a martyr—the heroic gul tortured and killed in captivity by vicious Federation rebels. The Central Command would have no choice but to act. They would declare war in his name, and the whole Union would mourn. 

They would put up statues of him. Monuments. In history, he would be vindicated. His name would be spoken for centuries, his victories made legend. The thought made him almost giddy.

Krell’s footsteps circled him with slow, deliberate ease. “I didn’t want it to have to come to this, you know,” he said with a sigh, like he actually meant it. His booted foot nudged Dukat onto his back.

The sting of his raw flesh against the rough stone was only a minor annoyance. Dukat let out a hoarse laugh, letting his bound hands lay across his bruised and possibly cracked ribs. “You’re good. Better than I anticipated,” he rasped. “You Bajorans continue to surprise me.”

Krell knelt down next to him and picked up the scalpel again, unmindful of the blood on his hands as he placed his free hand under Dukat’s jaw to tilt his head to one side. 

“You know,” Krell began, almost casually, “I think there’s great value in pain. ‘We find in suffering some dimensions of enlightened truths which cannot be found in ordinary existence.’ Corac, right?” 

Dukat bared his teeth in a grin. “ _The Never-Ending Sacrifice._ I’m surprised you know it.”

“It’s good to know your enemy. Terribly dull book, though.” 

“A Bajoran would think so.”

The scalpel nudged expertly underneath the edge of the lowest scale in his neck ridge, right where it joined with his shoulder ridge. This time, Dukat kept his eyes open, making unwavering eye contact with Krell’s wide, luminous gaze. He had suffered this before, and he could do it again. Or so he believed. 

Krell twisted the blade without warning. Clearly, he had done this before. 

The pain was worse than in any of Dukat’s memories, worse than being hit by shrapnel on Bajor, worse than being electrocuted, a pain that felt like raw nerves being dug out of the flesh and burned. He thrashed and squirmed on pure instinct, desperate, but Krell’s hand dug cruelly into the soft, vulnerable part of his throat, just under his jaw. Krell’s knee on his chest kept him pinned, his ribs protesting the pressure with further agony. He couldn’t breathe; it felt like his very ridges were being cut off, his throat gored and slit, and the terror and pain surged up like a wave that finally overwhelmed him.

Dukat couldn’t even remember what he said to get Krell to stop, only that he was babbling and begging incoherently for the pain to end. It was utterly shameful; his father was probably rolling in his grave, but the old bastard had no room to talk. He’d sung like a regova bird for the Obsidian Order. 

Afterwards, Dukat lay there in a daze of semiconsciousness, his breath coming in shaky gasps. Involuntary tears blurred his vision. His raw flesh seemed to burn. He curled up on his side with a momentous effort, instinctually trying to shield his neck and his soft belly. Warm blood trickled down to pool in the spoon-shaped dip in his upper chest, then painted a delicate line across his clavicle, like a red necklace. The world felt hazy and unsteady around him. 

Krell held aloft the smooth gray scale pried from Dukat’s neck ridge, its tender bloody underside gleaming wetly in the light. “And this was all it took,” he mused, triumphant. “So, where _is_ the Central Command sending weapons?”

Dukat just stared up at him with glassy, unfocused eyes, barely comprehending, and Krell instructed the guard at the door to retrieve the Vulcan woman. 

Two more humans dragged Dukat’s nude, bloodied form to a larger adjacent cave, where Sakonna was waiting. They forced him to his knees, his wrists still bound in front of him. 

“I doubt he’ll give you any trouble now, Sakonna,” said Niles with clear satisfaction, and Dukat wished he was close enough to rip the man’s throat out with his teeth. 

Sakonna’s expression was impassive, but there was some hint of… emotion in her dark eyes. She found this regrettable. Pitiable. It was _humiliating,_ to be looked at like that by some pretentious pointy-eared mammal. Dukat wished he had the coordination or the strength left to bite as she placed her fingertips on his face again. 

She stared down at him for a long moment, and he wondered if she could see the hatred burning behind his eyes. She should have been afraid. But she wasn’t. Instead, she had the gall to pity him. 

Then, Sakonna closed her eyes. Dukat felt the pressure of her mind, and he had nothing left with which to resist. The image in his mind’s eye of the map of Cardassia City was blurred and incomplete, and the throb of pain that radiated from behind his right eye had returned with a vengeance. She pushed past his defenses, and he nearly choked. Her presence in his mind was something overwhelming, something foreign and terrifying and agonizing, but he couldn’t escape it. 

The irony was that he really didn’t know. 

She could pick apart his memories if she so chose, comb through it all and leave it scattered, just to be sure. But from the moment she entered, he could feel the surprise of the realization echo from her mind. The meld was a two-way connection, even when forced. 

She pulled back abruptly, breaking the connection, and for a moment Dukat was certain he was going to pass out. A wave of dizziness and nausea came over him, and darkness threatened to overwhelm his vision, like the atmospheric pressure had suddenly dropped to half. For the first second, he fought it on instinct, but the temptation to simply fall into blissful unconsciousness was a terribly strong one. 

The only thing that stopped him from giving in to it was the sound of a familiar, sonorous voice that said, “You must be the Maquis.”

That was strange. It sounded like Commander Sisko.

Niles pointed his phaser rifle at the group who had just beamed in, three of them. “And so what if we are? Leave now and we won’t kill you.”

Sisko was utterly unaffected. “I’m not leaving without Dukat.” 

Niles flicked the safety off the phaser. “Then you’re not leaving.”

Dukat could hardly believe his ears. It all still seemed a little unreal. What was the commander waiting for? He ought to shoot them already. 

Had he said that out loud? Sisko was looking at him now, brows furrowed. 

There was a lull, the tiniest of hesitations from everyone involved. Dukat seized his chance.

He wrested the phaser rifle from one of the rebels closest to him and headbutted the other when he turned around. Unfamiliar shouts echoed off the walls as phaser fire tore through the darkness. He was vaguely aware of the room descending into chaos as he stood up, but as soon as he was upright, a wave of dizzying blackness surged up to swallow him whole. This time, he didn’t fight it.

He remembered falling, but not hitting the ground.

—

Dukat woke up to the low hum of a runabout engine. He couldn’t so much hear it as he could feel it through the floor, or whatever he was laying on. The first thing he realized was that he was finally, blessedly warm, wrapped in several thermal blankets. The second was that there was a curious lack of pain, replaced by the fuzzy, cottony haze of painkillers that had settled over his mind. It felt… strange. He tried to sit up from where he was lying on his side, but he found that his body protested even the idea. Attempting to contract the necessary muscles was entirely too much effort. Dukat was too exhausted to become agitated or anxious about it. Perhaps he could just... lie here for a bit instead.

There was a glimpse of movement from across the room, and Dukat realized belatedly that he wasn’t alone. Something anxious did stir in him at that, but the scent was vaguely familiar. Starfleet. Terok Nor. Human. 

“Hello,” said the young human with gentle but professional courtesy. Dukat observed him momentarily. Smooth brown skin, male (most likely), short dark hair, intelligent hazel eyes. “I’m—”

“Doctor Bashir,” Dukat finished for him, then grimaced at how hoarse his voice was. 

The human visibly brightened. “You recognize me. That’s good,” he said with a nod. “Do you know where you are?”

Dukat was vaguely annoyed at being questioned as though he were an idiot, but he decided to humor the doctor, if only because he had no energy for his usual snark. “One of your runabouts, I would assume,” he said with a glance around the small space, which he supposed must be what passed for the infirmary on the tiny ship. 

“That’s right,” Bashir affirmed. “We’re on our way back to Deep Space Nine. I’ll be able to treat your wounds properly there. For now, I’ve given you something for the pain, and I’d like you to just rest.”

Another figure appeared in the doorway just then, and they both looked up to see Odo standing there with his arms crossed. “Perfect timing,” he said. “I was hoping to ask you some questions, Gul Dukat.” 

Truthfully, the last thing Dukat wanted to do was talk to anyone at the moment, and he was about to say as much, but Bashir spoke first.

“Can’t it wait, Odo?” Bashir asked with a frown. 

“I’m afraid not. You humanoids have memories that degrade rather quickly, and I’d like to get an accurate account of his side of the situation,” Odo said, nodding towards Dukat. 

Dukat wanted to protest being generalized alongside humans, of all things, but just lifting his head had taken a truly unreasonable amount of effort, and the best he could manage was a halfhearted glare in the shapeshifter’s direction. 

“It’ll have to wait, Odo. I must insist,” Bashir said. His gaze was pointed despite his polite tone. “My patient needs rest, not another interrogation.” 

Odo looked none too pleased, but he acquiesced with a grunt. “Very well then.”

When the shapeshifter made no move to depart, Bashir raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you have prisoners to be guarding, Odo?”

“I’m charged with assuring the safety of everyone on board this ship,” was Odo’s curt response.

Bashir looked unconvinced, and Dukat let out a snort. Who did the constable think he was fooling, exactly?

“I can assure you I’m quite safe,” Bashir responded with poorly concealed exasperation.

He seemed so confident in that, Dukat noted with vague amusement. He hadn’t decided yet if that made the doctor brave or stupid. 

Odo grimaced but indeed backed down, however reluctantly. “I’ll take your word for it, Doctor,” he conceded with a nod. “I must advise you to be careful, though. I hear that Cardassians can be… difficult patients.” 

“You may have a point there,” Bashir said with the barest hint of a smile. “Nothing a few cc’s of triptacederine can’t fix.”

Well. No wonder Dukat felt like he could drop off to sleep. The doctor had already seen fit to sedate him. He didn’t intend to sleep, though. Not yet. Some part of him wanted to be sure they were headed for Terok Nor. 

Odo gave a nod in Bashir’s direction and walked out, likely to report to the Commander.

  
“I am sorry about that,” Bashir said when they were alone, turning back towards Dukat with those guileless eyes. “I’m sure you know how devoted Odo is to his job. Anyway, I do want you to rest until we get to Deep Space Nine. I’ve given you as high a dose of painkiller as I thought safe; I’m not sure what the dosage recommendations are for Cardassians—my specialty is primarily humans, Vulcans, and Trills—and the only other Cardassian I’ve treated is Garak, so I didn’t want to assume anything since Garak has some fairly unique markers in…”

It was easy to lie there and listen to the rhythm of the doctor’s voice, Dukat thought, even if most of what he was saying was inane and useless. Bashir’s speech had a pleasant sort of lilt to it, for a human. He hadn’t even realized it, but his tail had at some point relaxed from its position curled around his legs, and was now swaying lazily back and forth near the edge of the makeshift bed in a semblance of contentment. He supposed the drugs were finally kicking in, and it was a rather nice change, all things considered. 

Bashir trailed off at one point, blinking. He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I must be boring you half to death.”

“By all means, continue, Doctor,” Dukat murmured, eyes half-closed. It was getting harder and harder to fight the heaviness that had come over his body, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. “It is… a welcome change of pace.”

Bashir was like a hound pup, young and eager and not particularly dangerous yet. It could do no harm to sleep a few hours under his watch. 


End file.
